The site visit report: what to record, and how to keep it on file
Why the report matters more than the visit, how to keep an observation, an instruction and a variation apart, a one-page format with numbered items and owners, photographs that can be used later, and what to do when the contractor disputes it.
- A site visit that leaves no report did not happen, as far as anyone arguing about it later is concerned. The report is the part that survives.
- Keep three things apart on the page: what you observed, what you instructed, and what you said would change the cost or the time. Mixed together they become the dispute.
- One page, issued within a day, numbered, with an action list that names an owner and a date. Longer reports are read less and challenged more.
- Instructions given on site are the ones most often later called variations. Say plainly in the report which are which.
Most studios visit sites. Fewer can later show what they saw, what they said and what they asked for. The visit itself is conversational: a walk with the contractor, a few phone photographs, a verbal decision about a door position, and a drive back. The only record is a WhatsApp group with sixty photos and no sentences.
That is fine until the contractor says the studio approved a change, or the client asks why a defect was not flagged, or the studio itself needs to know what it was told in March. This guide sets out what a site visit report needs to hold, how to write one in ten minutes, and how to keep it where it can be found.
Why the report matters more than the visit
On site, the studio's work is observed and the contractor's work is observed, and both parties leave with different memories of what was agreed. A written account issued the next day does one specific thing: it fixes the version of events that everyone had a chance to correct. If nobody objects to a report that arrived the following morning, the silence is itself a small piece of evidence.
It also protects the studio from the opposite problem. A studio that says nothing in writing about a defect it noticed has not, in practice, told anyone. A report that lists the observation, the date and the person it was raised with is the difference between having flagged something and having thought about flagging it.
Observation, instruction and variation are three different things
The most useful habit in a site report is to refuse to blur three categories. They look alike in a chat message and have very different consequences afterwards.
| Kind | What it says | Example | What follows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Observation | What you saw, without an instruction attached | Sunken slab at the master bath, roughly 20 mm below the adjoining floor. | Nothing is required of anyone until it becomes an instruction. |
| Instruction | What you asked the contractor to do, against the drawings | Break out and re-cast the bath slab to the level on drawing A-204 rev C. | An action with an owner and a date. |
| Change | Something that departs from the drawings or the agreed scope | Client asked for the niche to move 600 mm to the left. | Priced or absorbed in writing, in the variation log, before work proceeds. |
The third row is the one that matters commercially. A change is not an instruction with a different label.
Verbal changes agreed on site are where cost disputes start. The contractor remembers being told to proceed; the client remembers not agreeing a price; the studio remembers neither. Writing the change as a separate line, tagged as a change, with a note that the cost or time effect is to be confirmed, costs ten seconds and gives the client a chance to say yes or no before the work is done. The scope creep guide covers the variation log that those lines feed.
A one-page site visit report format
The format below fits on a single page and is deliberately plain. Adapt the headings; keep the order.
Header: project, report number, date, time on site, weather
Number reports in sequence so a missing one is visible. Weather and time matter more than they seem when work quality or curing is questioned later.
Who was present, and who was not
Names and roles. Add "not present" for anyone who was expected, such as the structural consultant or the client. It heads off the later claim that they were told on the day.
Drawings used
List the sheet numbers and revisions the contractor was working from. If the set on site is not the current one, say so here; this is the most valuable single line in the report. See the issue register guide.
Progress in two lines
Which areas are complete, which are under way, which have not started. A progress photograph with a caption is worth more than a paragraph.
Observations, numbered
One line each, with a location. No adjectives, no blame. Reference a photograph by number.
Instructions, numbered, with owner and date
Who must do what, to which drawing, by when. If something is to be done "as soon as possible", it has no date and will not happen.
Changes raised on site, flagged separately
Who requested it, what it departs from, and that cost and time are to be confirmed. Do not price it on the spot.
Open items from last visit
Carry forward anything still not closed, so the report doubles as a running snag list.
Keep the tone flat. A report is read by a client, a contractor and, occasionally, someone outside the project. Write what you would be comfortable reading aloud to all three.
Photographs that can be used later
Photographs are the evidence everyone remembers and the part most often done badly. Fifty unlabelled images are less useful than six with captions. A photograph that someone can use needs three things: where it was taken, what it shows, and that it is the same place as the previous visit's photograph.
- Take a wide shot first and a close shot second, so the location is unambiguous.
- Place a drawing or a marked scale in frame where a dimension is the point.
- Number photographs in the report and caption them in one line: grid reference, level, what is wrong or right.
- Photograph the same viewpoint each visit for areas that change, such as a facade or a floor plate. The sequence shows progress, and shows a defect appearing.
- Keep originals. A phone's own date stamp and metadata are part of the record; a screenshot of a chat message is not the same thing.
Issuing it: who receives it and when
Issue the report within a day. Send it to the contractor, the client and the relevant consultant, and say in the covering line that comments or corrections are welcome within a stated number of days. Silence after that is not agreement to everything, but a corrected report is a stronger record than an unchallenged one, and a challenge that arrives six weeks late is much weaker.
Do not bundle the report into the chat thread where the day's other messages sit. Reports belong where they can be found by date, and the thread buries them within a week. The portal-versus-Drive comparison sets out why scattered channels fail exactly here.
In AtelierLab the natural home is the client's workspace: the report is filed as a document in that client's folder, and the audit log records when it was opened and downloaded and by whom, which answers "did they get it" without a follow-up. There is no dedicated site-report form; it is an ordinary document in a document set. If a contractor or consultant needs only the report and not the drawings, a share link that expires does it without opening the whole project.
When the contractor disputes the report
It will happen occasionally, and it is not a failure of the report. The healthy response is to ask the contractor to mark the line they disagree with, in writing, within the period you stated, and to record their version beside yours. Do not reissue silently with the line deleted; issue a revision of the report that shows both.
Then separate the factual disagreement from the commercial one. Whether the slab was below level is a matter for a measurement. Whether that makes the work a variation is a matter for the contract. A report that kept the two apart from the beginning makes this conversation short.
Where an instruction was accepted verbally and put in writing later, the client approval guide covers pinning down who agreed to what, which applies to the contractor and the client equally.
Keep the site record with the drawings
AtelierLab is in early access and onboarding our first studios personally. File each site report in the client's workspace beside the drawings it refers to, with a log of who opened it and when. Tell us how site records are kept in your studio today and we will say honestly whether it fits.
Questions, answered
The questions architects ask most about this, in plain language.
Ask us anythingProject, report number, date, time and weather; who was present and who was not; the drawing sheets and revisions the contractor was working from; progress in a couple of lines; numbered observations; numbered instructions with an owner and a date; changes raised on site, flagged separately; and open items carried forward from the last visit.
An instruction asks the contractor to do something against the existing drawings and contract, such as correct a level. A variation is a change to the drawings or the agreed scope that may alter cost or time. A variation should be recorded in writing, and priced or absorbed explicitly, before work proceeds.
Within about a day is a good habit, because the report is most useful as the first written account everyone had a chance to correct. Say in the covering note how long recipients have to raise corrections.
Fewer than most studios take. A handful captioned with location, level and what is shown, taken from the same viewpoint each visit, is more useful than dozens in a chat thread.
That depends on what your appointment letter says you agreed to supervise, so read it, and take advice if it is unclear. This guide does not give a frequency because the right one is not the same for every appointment.
Where they can be found by project and date, beside the drawings they refer to, instead of inside a chat thread. In AtelierLab that means a document in the client's workspace, with a log of who opened or downloaded it. There is no dedicated site-report form.